


And The World Said Goodnight

by Lithiumstars



Category: And The World Said Goodnight, Original Work
Genre: < very brief, Assassination, Fantastic Racism, Fantasy Races, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi, Original Fantasy, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Polyamory, Post-War, War, god i hate that tag fskjsdk racism is not fantastic but it is fantasy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-04-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:07:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23840554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lithiumstars/pseuds/Lithiumstars
Summary: Rocked by the death of the first Goddess, Marin, a world of magic is collapsing in on itself. It's up to her youngest son, and his ragtag group of strays, to unravel the mystery that plunged the world into Darkness.Original work, I've been working on this on and off for the past seven years. Please give it a try! I'm awful at summaries aha
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3





	And The World Said Goodnight

It began, as many things do, with fate. Specifically, the Fate. Fate was the beginning, the original creator. She, or they, do beings of chaos and light even understand the concept of this, created everything we know of- if not more. Born of nothing but the willingness to exist, she brought our world into actuality.

It was barren, devoid of anything we can name. Fate took each of her arms and created the four Archaic gods. Terra, beast of earth, sprouted mountains at their feet. Coventina, leviathan of the water, brought with them the deep oceans. Ignis, spirit of fire, brought with him the rushing power and movement of the land. Aellis, drake of the air, took into the sky and weather followed her.

Fate’s creation had the building blocks, but not the spark for life. That came from her children. Without her arms, Fate was unable to further her world, and so her Four came together with the powers bestowed to create Vitt, the ghost-god of Life itself. As his feet touched the bare earth, lush greens flowed outwards, billowing jungles of flora, flowers blooming across dusty ground. 

From this, the planet thrived. But Vitt, glancing across the forests and kelps, knew it was no different to the deserts that were there before. He gathered clays from across the planet, sculpted them into vast shapes and sizes, and breathed his gift of life into them. They began to move, flourishing alongside the flora. It was a perfect balance, and Fate agreed. 

Vitt had done something else though, in secret from his parent gods and Fate, and created a being from his own image. They were far more intelligent from the other denizens of the planet. They could use tools, could learn and pass information between them at will, could question each other.

They could question the gods.

The Archaic Four did not agree with Vitt’s final creation, and each took one for their own. This created the five races of Basmerth. The Hyra, the originals, Vitt’s untouched survivors. The Visska, Terra’s forest dwellers. The Osska, Coventina’s followers beneath the waves. The Vollka, Ignis’ striders of the fire. Aether, Aellis’ flock of winged strays.

Now, this could all be bollocks. The Archaic gods do exist. Vitt, if ancient texts are to be believed, did exist at some point in our history. There is some credit to this old story. But, like they thought, we were made to question our existence.

And we do.

But there is a magic in this world. It is deep, powerful, and unknowable. Our Goddesses are but a glimpse of the untamed riches that lies beneath our feet and inside every one of us. This is a story about magic. This is a story about us, about life, about death, about questions no-one thought to ask before.

This is a story about the World.

**1 - A story about the World**

A knife, sharpened by the sheath it sat in, plunged into her back. Hyran hands gripped it tight, blood red eyes and thick blood reflected each other, the latter dribbling from the wound as the blade fell back. Hands shaking, shoes clicking on the marble floor, the assassin ran. They slipped through alleyways, hidden in the shadows of the moons, finding themself at the edge of a cliff, overlooking the dense clouds that swirled beneath the Aetherius. Stranded, the assassin bloodied their blade again, and made sure they fell to Kaalva below.

Marin, Goddess of the Sky, patron of families and the Queen of the Aether, was felled by a Hyra in the year 841. Her blood ran black by the time they found her corpse. Taken aback by the suddenness of the assassination, the Aether declared war on the Hyra. The war lasted until the early spring of 845. Marin’s husband, father of the three princes, debatable father of the fourth, took stead as the Aether’s King. They did not appreciate a Hyra leading their people after the war, but Marin loved him, and that was enough. The princes were hidden away, kept as safe as possible. 

The youngest, Theodore, was 12 at the time of her death. Reports say he saw it happen. His disappearance following her death almost confirms this. Reports say they saw him fly far from the Aetherius, north towards Krowna. Reports say that he was taken by the assassin. The truth is, no-one but Theodore knows what happened to him until the winter of 845, when a frozen and half-dead Aether arrived at the fringes of a small town in Fryste, known locally as Bridge, rather simply.

Bridge was a small bastion in the cold permafrost of its province, close enough to the border with the Central to allow trading, but far enough to keep it safe from anyone looking for trouble. It was a Hyra town, relatively untouched by the war. Relatively, in the terms that many towns of Central and south towards the floating islands of Aetherius were almost all destroyed or in other ways consumed by it. Bridge lost many good men and women, including one rather important one: Eden Rudd. 

She is important to our story. Everyone is, really. But her death, her loss, and the empty space it left in her son’s life is what leads us to the beginning. A boy, swaddled in a thick, padded coat, wandering aimlessly about the outskirts of his hometown, kicking snow and rocks as he walked. Bright green caught his eye, as it would in a blanket of eternal white, and he picked up his pace. Excitement was rare in his life. He pulled down his hood, a mop of black hair spilling out in loose curls, and knelt down in the snow. 

He’d never seen an Aether before. His father ranted about them, and he imagined great beasts, Hyra with the measurements of a bird, spindly and unsightly, with razor sharp claws and teeth. Monsters. This Aether in front of him was not a monster, not unsightly. He was past shivering, whimpering softly in the powdery snow that coated him, brown skin blushing red where it was exposed to the elements, which was a lot, considering the limited clothing Aether wore to accommodate for their wings, which stuck out behind him at an odd angle, feathers green and yellow, tousled and torn.

Thomas, the Hyran boy, scooped the Aether up in his arms and ran, as fast as he could with another in his arms, through the snow and across a field, the sheep there largely disinterested with him, to a large farmhouse. He knocked with his boot, knocking the latch with his shoulder in a practised ease, and let himself inside. A blond woman shouted in surprise as she spotted him, body in his arms, and ushered him towards the fire. Her name was Hilde, a short and plump woman, who Thomas assumed until a decent age was always pregnant, considering the amount of children the family had. Hilde and Eden had been close friends, and Thomas had therefore always been welcome in her house. Hilde’s husband was less welcoming of a man, but was far more pleasant than Thomas’ father. 

Hilde took the Aether from Thomas’ arms, snatching a quilt from a nearby armchair to drape over the frozen boy, laying him close to the fire. Thomas watched, breath thin and bated. He knew enough about the cold. He knew it could, and would, take the lives of those unprepared. The Aether started shivering, and he released a deep sigh of relief, slumping slightly where he’d sat on the stone floor. 

A number of children had amassed on the stairs to their right, leaning over the handrail and each other to get a glimpse of the sudden additions to the house. A boy stood at the front, padding forwards quietly. He stood out amongst the family, for obvious reasons, as he was not Hyran like the parents and their children, but Visska. Slate blue skin, rich with freckles and splatters of colour, deep grey hair and small antlers that sat above each ear. He caught Thomas’ eye, sitting next to him cross-legged, and rested a paw on his knee. 

“What happened?” he asked, simply, staring with wide blue eyes at the Aether.  
“I don’t know.” Thomas muttered, shaking his head gently.  
He didn’t press further. He just sat with him, watching as the colour slowly returned to the Aether’s face. Hilde busied herself, preparing hot water and finding the bandage around the corner in the kitchen.

“Okay. What really happened?” He asked again, shuffling slightly closer to the Aether on his hands, facing Thomas the whole time.  
“I really don’t know. Joel, don’t look at me that way.”  
Joel was making a sour face, shrugging as he turned to look at the Aether.  
“I really don’t! I just found him out in the snow, looked like he’d been there a while. How’d he get so far north?”  
“Maybe he came from Krowna?” Joel supplied, testing how close he could get to the stranger.  
“Doubt it. Not dressed fancy enough.”  
Joel nodded in agreement. 

Hilde returned shortly, shooing away the children from the stairs, and set to gently cleaning any obvious wounds. None of them knew much about Aether, bar the violently inaccurate propaganda they were fed during the war, but you didn’t need to know much to see a broken wing. Hilde tried her best to set it straight, sending Thomas and Joel out to find a suitable splint while she bandaged his arm and neck, where he’d been scraped by something rather harshly.

He woke up many hours later, stark upright in the bed he’d been so gingerly placed earlier. He lurched forwards, hissing in pain as the odd angle of his wing changed. A paw gently nudged at his chest, guiding him back down to the mattress. His breathing was quick, eyes scanning the ceiling, shifting about to the two people to his side.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright.” Joel started, removing his paw from his chest, “You’re safe here. I promise.”  
“What am I- What happened to my wing?” The Aether shifted up some, propped up on a pillow, “Did you do this?”  
Joel shook his head calmly.  
“We did bandage it, but no, we didn’t hurt you. Do you remember why you were out there?”  
“No.”  
“Okay. That’s alright.”  
“Who are you?” Thomas asked, leaning forwards in his chair.  
“Oh. Uh. My name?”  
He nodded.  
“Call me, uh, Theo, please.”  
“Well, Theo, welcome to Bridge. You’re in Fryste.” Joel slid from the stool, walking over to pin the curtain up, letting in the light of the late morning.

Theo seemed pleased to hear his name, dozily smiling for a moment.  
“How come you’re in Fryste? We don’t usually, well, we’ve never seen Aether in this town before.” Thomas questioned.  
“I ran away. Someone killed the Queen.”  
“Yeah, but like, that was four years ago now.”  
Theo choked on his breath.  
“Four.”  
“Yup.”  
Joel returned to the bedside, face uneasy.  
“You’re saying you’ve been out there… for four years.”  
“I-I uh,” Theo stared at the bedsheets, hands straining to hold the fabric, “I guess?”  
“Shit.”

Theo’s wing healed wrong. It wasn’t his fault, nor Hilde’s nor the boys’. The rest of him healed well, though, and he was soon up and about. This, as you might imagine, caused a stir in Bridge. The war, barely over, and now an Aether walks their streets without a care. And worse, the Aether seemed oblivious to the entire conflict. He was, of course. He’d seen the fires, the corpses, but he didn’t know war. 

He lived with Hilde and her family, staying close to the farmhouse for his own safety. He helped out where he could, the bright colours of his plumage working well to corral the sheep. He couldn’t fly, but he could flap them enough to send the herd bounding towards the pasture on the other side of town. He actually became rather well liked in time. The war sat sour in many of the townsfolk’s minds, the Aether nothing but an enemy that took loved ones and destroyed lives in their wake. Yet here, before them, stood a flightless child with a thirst for knowledge and a penchant for playing with the local dogs. Nothing like the stories they had heard. How could this be a heartless killer? Granted, he was young, but Bridge had accepted Joel from a young age, and they would come to accept Theo as one of their own by the next spring.

He stood on the hill overlooking Bridge, the warmth of early summer doing nothing to melt the permafrost of Fryste, but enough that he’d stripped away the white sweater, wrapping it securely around his waist. It was 848. His hair bobbed around at his shoulders, lifted by the breeze that wafted lazily up from the valley. His wings had grown much larger in the three years since they healed. The odd angle was barely noticeable now. He felt the updraft through his feathers.  
“Are you sure about this?” Thomas asked, sat to his side on the stump of an old spruce.  
“If you mess up, we can’t exactly help you.” Joel added, tying his hair into a loose bun, tucking stray locks behind his antlers.  
Theo nodded.  
“If you die before you hit twenty, I owe Faulkner six shells.” Thomas snorted, swaying his arms as he stood up.  
“Then that’s your problem,” Theo smirked, smacking him in the shoulder with the tip of his outstretched wing. 

His wings unfurled to their full span, easily thrice his height from tip to tip. A rich blue coloured their backs, with strong blue-greens lining the inner vanes, fading to a sunflower yellow at the peak of each feather. The wind picked up. Theo took a deep breath, feeling for the perfect moment, and beat his wings down as he tore down the slope. His feet lifted from the thick snow, and he let instinct take over, the updraft carrying him high above the hillside. Beneath the rushing wind at his ears, he could hear the whooping of Joel and Thomas far below him, and for a moment he realised just how far above the ground he was. 

Bridge below, the coast in sight, the endless ocean. The clouds above him seemed so close, so palpable. Something called him up further. Sounds of joy from his friends turned to concern as he climbed the updraft. Strange noises echoed in his ears.

His mother, eyes wide and teary, hazel glinting in the low light of the evening. One hand outstretched towards him, mouth agape in a permanent gasp.

His wings folded at his side and he dove, tail outstretched as he neared the ground, swooping up the hill towards his friends. His landing was far less graceful than he had planned for, feet skidding in the snow, falling flat on his back. He could hear Thomas laughing before he heard their footfalls behind him. 

“Are you alright? Holy shit, that was incredible!” Joel slipped to his knees beside him, offering an arm, which Theo gladly took.  
“I uh, I’m good. Yeah.” He lied.  
“You can do that whenever you want?” Thomas asked, incredulous.  
“Maybe not that exact thing, but yeah, I can fly again. Wow. That’s weird. Okay, look, I’m gonna sound crazy but I think I had like, a vision or something while I was up there?”  
“As crazy as claiming you’re a prince?” Thomas snarked, resting on his heels,  
“Mhm.” Theo took a breath, “I need to find out what killed Marin.”  
“Why?”  
“Because I was there when it happened. I don’t care if you don’t believe me, but I think this is some calling or something. I never saw the killer, but even then, I doubt this was a one person job.”  
“Conspiracy sorta thing?” Joel pondered, looking skywards.  
“Maybe. I think I just owe her that much.”  
“How would you even- where would you start?”  
“Krowna.”  
“You’re doing this alone?” Thomas asked.  
“If you’re asking to come with,” Theo trailed off, looking at the two of them.  
Joel took his hand and smiled. Thomas hooked an arm under his shoulder, helping him stand.

Two nights later, Thomas stood in the graveyard, two foot from a stone marker. It was coated in frost, the sprigs and splinters of long dead flowers littering its base. Eden’s grave held no body. The cemetery, at that moment, contained more living bodies than it did dead, Joel and Theo stood at the gate, large packs on both’s backs, a third at their feet.  
“I thought I’d say goodbye,” Thomas started, his voice already faltering, “I don’t know if I’ll ever come back. You understand why, I’m sure. Joel’s coming with me, and our new friend. We’ve got each other, and you always said you choose your family.”  
Joel leaned into Theo, shuddering slightly. He returned the half-hug.  
“I’m gonna do you proud, I promise. I love you.”  
Glaki’s name taunted him from the overgate as Thomas slung the pack over his shoulder, wiping at his eyes with the other arm. Joel took his hand in his as they left.

They would head north to the coast, and follow it westward until they found a crossing to Krowna. The island province was too far to travel without precaution, and since Marin’s passing, the colleges and temples there had closed off to all but the natives. It was an island of knowledge, and really was the best place to start, considering it’s connection to the gods. Marin’s homeland, all those thousands of years ago.

**Author's Note:**

> Please see my tumblr @detarisaak for any questions and further information about this! Lots of love <3


End file.
